The need often arises for mounting a structure to a shaft when conventional means, for example, mechanical fasteners, welding, or machining, are unfeasible or simply impossible. For instance, when it is necessary to mount a structure onto an existing shaft in an existing assembly, it is sometimes difficult to mount a structure, for example, a ring or bearing housing, to the shaft. Existing shafts may not be accessible for machining, or they may have a metallurgy that is incompatible with welding or machining, or the shaft dimensions may have too large a tolerance where conventional mounting means are undesirable or impractical.
The present inventors encountered such a situation where conventional mounting means were incompatible with the condition of the shaft to which they were interested in mounting a structure, specifically, mounting a bearing backing plate. The inventors desired to mount a circular disk-shaped, bearing-backing ring to an existing forged or cast train axle. However, the existing train axle was a forged axle having an outside diameter that varied by about +/−0.030 inches. The inventors found that this forged axle did not lend itself to conventional mounting methods, for example, welding or machining. Also, the relatively large tolerance of the outside diameter required that whatever was mounted to the shaft be able to accommodate the variation in diameter while providing at least some resistance to the rotation of the backing plate relative to the shaft.
Aspects of the present invention provided the means for mounting the backing ring to the shaft. Moreover, the inventors recognized that aspects of the present invention were not limited to use with forged or cast train axles, but could be used in any situation in which it was desirable to mount a structure, any structure, on to any type of shaft.